being intentional in 2025
As always, another year has started without warning and we're already 10 days in. I know that time as we use and understand it is largely arbitrary, but I always feel refreshed at the beginning of the year and inspired to try new things. I'm aware that this is probably just a psychological trick, but if it motivates me to improve myself in ways that last long term, I'll take it.
Which brings me to the topic of today's little ramble on the blog. I've been mulling over this for a long time and picking away at my habits very casually, but something I really want to prioritize this year is being more mindful about my consumption. For the purposes of this post, I mostly mean how I spend my disposable income on entertainment—in particular, books and video games.
I know I'm not alone in this, but I have a pretty severe tendency to buy stuff and then never touch it again. The item then collects dust forever until I decide I know longer want it. In theory, this is fine—it's great to support creators! But I don't actually have an infinite amount of money or the space to put all of the books I buy when I'm stressed out and digital storage still takes up space somewhere, even if it isn't in my own room.
That's why this year, I'm making it a huge priority to minimize the new material that is coming in, particularly if I'm not actually enjoying what I've already bought. It breaks my heart to get rid of books that I know I just bought because I was having a bad day and will never read—my bank account also weeps, as do my extremely full three bookshelves. I simply don't have the space to keep items I'm lukewarm about and recently, even digital clutter is causing me a lot of stress and guilt.
I don't have a strict plan because that makes goals harder to achieve, but I'd like to minimize my book purchases to a more reasonable number. Even a book a week would be a massive reduction at this stage—yes, really. For video games, the amount I buy isn't excessive, so as long as I actually play and complete a few games this year, I'll be extremely happy.
Anyway, if anyone wants to follow along while I try to be a more mindful person with my media, you can check out what I'm doing in finer detail on Backloggery for games and Bookwyrm for books.
Good luck to all of us in achieving whatever goals we may have and here's to a great year!
Updated 7Â months, 2Â weeks ago